HERE is a fact to alarm or excite you: the first football match is in 32 days.

Collingwood and West Coast, due to play in South Africa until the global financial crisis put an end to the fixture, will still meet first up this year but it will be at Subiaco on February 7.

The Magpies, who had post-Christmas dinner testing yesterday, have lagged slightly for fitness in these encounters in previous years, but this year find themselves in good shape.

"We only kicked off the year today but we have our first game on February 7," said assistant coach Brad Scott. "With the venue change unfortunately didn't come a date change so we have got the early start so we needed to get back into it.

"We are pretty happy with where they are at as a group. We had a little bit of running testing and that was encouraging. Everyone has come back well.

"We have got a couple of guys we are giving a little bit of extra time to — Dale Thomas and Scott Pendlebury played in the international rules and some of the older guys will have some more time off."

Scott nominated Brent Macaffer, who was on the rookie list for the past two years but was promoted to the senior list at the end of last year, as a player to have impressed with his summer campaign.

"He has been in the system now for two years as a rookie so he understands what is required, and he is now starting to deliver that and he is looking more and more like an AFL player rather than a VFL player, so we are hoping for big things from him this year. He can play as a genuine full-forward, but also has got the endurance to go up the ground as well."

Scott said Dane Swan was the only player to have had post-season surgery, but as that operation did not interrupt his running Swan was actually fitter than he had been at the same time in previous years.

"Our injury concerns are fairly minimal so we have what we think is a very good squad of 30 that is ready and raring to play."

Travis Cloke, battered after an attack on New Year's Eve, was not at training.